


What Things Come

by danvssomethingorother



Series: Good Enough [1]
Category: The Venture Bros
Genre: Brock and Rusty are hopeless messes, M/M, Pete and Billy is more implied but its still there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-10 05:18:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15942563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danvssomethingorother/pseuds/danvssomethingorother
Summary: Takes place after the events of ‘A Party For Tarzan’. Brock knows that wasn’t an exploding pen, it had to have been another assassination attempt on Rusty Venture





	What Things Come

Brock had returned to the Ventech building just in time to be chewed out by a man he vaguely remembered Doc not shutting up about for the past week. He had tried to tune out Doc’s insistence on the importance of the man, Christopher Lambert the man he only knew from Doc’s nonstop talks of how important he was and how important it was he made his connection.

He returned however to find the Christopher Lambert impatiently waiting by the locked entrance. Brock offered to let him in with his key, but he would hear nothing of it and gave Brock the most long-winded fuck you and your employer speeches he had ever gotten from one of Rusty Venture’s business associates. 

Typical Doc, setting up something important, forgetting about it and leaving sitting at the entrance of his home. Brock didn’t take much stock into it, he just let himself in and pounded his fist on the security table giving Hatred a fright, making him jump up and immediately start giving excuses why he totally wasn’t asleep. 

He stepped into the elevator and hit the top floor, resting against the cool wall on his way up. It had been one hell of a night, Warriana was something else alright. It was time to go back where he truly belonged though, with his family. He smiled a little, with Rusty. He had to tease him a little for leaving his big important date waiting on the lawn while him and his idiot friends passed out in the penthouse.

He knew something had happened the second he stepped from the elevator though and his smile disappeared. It was like a sixth sense he had developed over the years, his home being this damn quiet meant something bad had happened while he was away. 

He quirked an eye brow finding Quiz boy passed out in the downstairs restroom, a blanket having been lovingly draped over his shoulders, the door ajar but chalked it up to Rust’s awful doctails.

He paused feet away from the couch finding Rusty and Pete close to each other, both whispering amongst themselves probably to keep from waking Billy passed out in the bathroom.

“That is one hell of a pen to explode like that, Rust.”

“Well that’s what happened, my damn pen just destroyed my unpaid for suit before I could sneak it back to the dry cleaners…”

“Ya do realize you are worth millions, right?” Pete scoffed shoving lightly at his friend, “You don’t need to steal outfits from the dry cleaner anymore and sneak them back before anyone notices. You can just go buy a nice suit.”

“I didn’t just need a nice suit,” Rusty sneered back in a much more subdued and quiet tone then he usually would, “I needed something specially crafted to impress a Lambert and well it would take far too much time for my tailor to make something nice on such short notice and he wouldn’t have noticed if my damn pen hadn’t exploded and someone didn’t spill an entire runny bottom on me.”

“Uh huh, whatever you say, Rust,” Pete chuckled rising from his spot leaving Rusty to pout where he left him.

Pete caught sight of Brock and his smile turned concerned as he stared at the body guard and mumbled something that made Brock’s stare at Rusty harden as he passed by him on his way to check on Billy.

“Exploding Pens don’t leave gun shot holes.”

Brock towered over his employer, arms crossed and a hardened stare never taking his eyes off Rusty who just side eyed him from where he sat, sighing at the look.

“Well my party was a bust,” he grumbled staggering to his feet and giving Brock a coy smile as he made his way upstairs. He walked slowly, trying to pass off how unbalanced he was to the alcohol, but Brock saw the bullet entrance and squinting just right he could see Kevlar peaking from the fabric. 

“I am heading to bed, you are welcome to join me if you like or maybe you are wore out from the main event?”

Brock just snarled grabbing Rusty’s wrist and pulling him up the stairs with him, not in the mood for his games. 

“What happened?” Brock demanded the second he slammed the man’s door behind him.

“You disappeared when I was hoping you would stick around, Christopher Lambert didn’t show up and Billy and an exploding pen ruined a stolen suite I am never going to hear the end of. There. You are caught up.”

Rusty had his back turned to him, digging out his PJs and pausing briefly to grimace, gently rubbing his ribs.

“Must have been some pen to injure yer ribs…” Brock said with a roll of his eyes, why was he lying about this? He couldn’t hide it. Rusty Venture was the biggest idiot he had ever decided to give so much of his time to. He hated it that this was the only man he would ever love. He sure knew how to pick them.

“It was a prototype. It had a bomb in it…” Rusty said with a sigh sitting on the edge of the bed, running his finger up and down his left side, “Something I was tinkering with. My own fault for carrying it around like that…”

Brock sighed taking pity on him, gently pushing him down on the mattress. He began unbuttoning his dress shirt and Rusty gently grabbed his hand, giving him that smug smile.

“Was she not enough tonight? Feeling like an adVenture?” he purred his last name for emphasis, making Brock smirk.

“Maybe,” Brock chuckled, “I just want to make sure you didn’t do anything stupid enough to land yourself in the hospital while I was away.”

“Its fine, Pete already felt, not broken, just bruised,” Rusty dismissed hissing as Brock pressed his fingers into his side, nothing broken. 

There was so much red stained into the white fabric Brock almost feared some of it was blood but just taking in the scent proved otherwise and made him turn his nose at the awful smell. He smelt like a bottle of rum had been dumped into a bottle of ketchup. His doctails were foul and Brock would never understand how he willingly drank them.

He turned his attention away from the stain and to the dress shirt itself. He held the fabric between his fingers, pinching it hard, feeling the thick armor between two smooth and silky pieces. He stared at the indent mark that had ripped the top layer of white fabric revealing the thick armor underneath, it was possible he supposed a mini bomb could do the damage, but he just didn’t like taking chances.

He pulled the fabric away completely and exposed Doc’s flesh and hissed at the large bruise forming right over his heart. Rusty had no idea how lucky he was that he was wearing the Kevlar when that happened. 

“See? Nothing but bruises, I am fine,” Rusty said in his most condescending tone and rolling his eyes.

“The worst part of tonight is I didn’t get my guest of honor I had worked so hard to invite to this little party.”

“Yeah…about that…” Brock mumbled taking another look over Doc’s body to make certain nothing was damaged after whatever the hell happened.

“Let me guess, you pass him on your way in? Hatred neglect to let him in?”

“Yeah….”

Rusty looked like he wanted to scream but somehow found the strength to hold it back, an accomplishment, a few years ago he would already be breaking things. Doc had come a long way since he stopped popping diet pills.

“I’m gonna go soak in the tub, you can come if you want or you can go do a perimeter check like I know you want to.”

“I’ll be back, just gonna make sure no one is trying to kill you first.”

“If you must,” Rusty said a tinge of disappointment coloring his dry tone.

“Its my job,” Brock replied back with a sigh watching Rusty disrobe slowly, almost teasingly to Brock, tossing each item on the floor, a coy smile on his face standing naked before his body guard before disappearing into the master bathroom, leaving the door open so his body guard could keep his eyes on him as he began preparing the bath. 

Brock smirked, he was a tease, always had been.

\----

Brock gripped the discarded jacket tightly in his hands, staring intently at the hole in the fabric. He found the pen prototype Rusty had been talking about in a pocket far away from where the impact had happened, even if he didn’t find the pen though, there was no way he could have believed it was an explosion that caused the impact.

He found the bullet itself not far from where Doc had thrown the jacket before running inside. 

He walked to the edge of the patio and glared at the building he had been at earlier when this had all went down. Whoever had pulled the trigger had to be associated with Wide Whale.

He bent down and picked up a mask that had been discarded on the ground, it was butterfly shaped. Monarch maybe? He decided against that pocketing the blue mask, that wasn’t his style. He eyed the hole in the jacket closer as he stepped back on the patio, where did Doc even get this?

Rusty had owned the same dozen pairs of suits since the eighties, Brock had never seen him wear this before. He recalled White mentioning Rusty stealing it from a dry cleaner, that seemed about right, it was not the first time Rusty had stolen cloths that way. Even with the millions to his name, old habits died hard it seemed.

The inside tag had the same butterfly engraved on it as the mask he had found, Brock narrowed his eyes. He knew that logo, but he didn’t know where he knew it from. 

Stepping back in the penthouse, he noted Billy was up and on the couch now, his head resting on White’s lap, taking up most of the space, Brock had to imagine his thighs would be numb soon holding that weight.

“So did ya find anything?” White asked absently keeping his eyes on Billy as he ran his fingers through his hair.

“Someone definitely tried to kill Doc, I found a bullet up there, you have any idea who would want to do that?”

“Ya know Rust, he has quite the line up of enemies,” White chuckled, “Maybe it was that Monarch character, haven’t seen him around in awhile.”

“Nah, this ain’t his style, my money is on Wide Whale, but I don’t have a motive.”

“The blue morpho has many enemies,” Billy slurred pointing his mental hand up and making White groan in annoyance as it nearly hit him.

“Oh hush, Billy, yer drunk,” White scolded playfully forcing his finger out of his face.

“Blue Morpho,” Brock grumbled knowing he had heard that name but couldn’t pin where it was from.

“Don’t mind him,” White said firmly as Billy began to fall back asleep, “He’s convinced Rusty of all people is the new vigilante in town…”

That Brock could confirm was untrue, even if he hadn’t been keeping the closest eye on Doc, he had known him so long he knew he held too much apathy and was far too lazy to ever willingly dress up and go out and fight crime. 

Brock left the two to their own devices as he headed back upstairs to check on the Venture family. The boys were asleep and that was unsurprisingly since it was going on one am but Rusty was still where he had left him not too long ago.

He looked ready to fall asleep in the water and with the alcohol still in his system that was a recipe for disaster, so Brock curtly called his nickname making Doc jump a little; specs of water sloshing onto the floor as he heaved himself up and glared at Brock for taking so long.

“Are you going to stand there or are you going to come join me finally?” Doc grumbled testily staring him down before sinking back into the water.

“I found a bullet on the patio, you were shot,” Brock said firmly sitting down on the edge of tub and holding the bullet close to Doc’s face so he could see it clearly even without his glasses on.

“I’ve been getting shot at since I was three,” Doc brushed off pulling at Brock trying to pull his massive weight into the tub with him. It was almost cute, his string bean employer straining himself yanking at his arm, half turning red and letting out a pained grown as he finally gave up. His fingers traveling down to the bruises that were more pronounced now on his ribs.

“No, ass, this is serious,” Brock said firmly but couldn’t stop the smile at the sight of this nearly fifty-year-old man pouting at him like a child.

“Where the hell did you get this suit at?”

“Join me and I’ll tell you everything,” Doc purred not done playing his little game, it would be cute if it wasn’t so annoying, “I’m a fountain of info when I’m in a good mood.”

Brock caught sight of the half empty wine bottle resting on the other side of the large tub and realized Doc had been drinking while he waited for him to come back. He was going to get nothing from him tonight.

He took in another sharp breath, trying to hide the pain and took the bottle of wine and began chugging it.

Brock sighed, Doc was a danger to everyone when he wanted something and that included himself. He had to be in pain from that blow but he wanted to play with Brock like he always did after nights he went to see Warriana, so he ignored it and self-medicated on alcohol to be able to play rough with his body guard. 

Brock reached his hand under the water and briefly brushed against Doc’s inner thigh making him moan and grab onto his body guard, but the smile fell as he felt Brock shoving him aside enough to pull the plug on the bath and the water began to drain around him.

Everything about Doc from his expression to his body language to the way he just let Brock pull him from the tub and wrap him in a towel spelled out his disappointment. Brock knew he wanted something else but that wasn’t what he needed right now. 

He nearly slipped on the wet floor even with Brock’s arm around him, so Brock swept him off his feet making Doc finally smile clinging to him and pressing a kiss on his lips Brock’s, he didn’t deny him, returning it in favor laying him across the bed.

Doc kept his fingers locked around Brock’s neck to keep him down with him but Brock easily pulled them away making Doc turn crestfallen once more as he sat up away from him.

“Not tonight,” Brock said firmly, “You just got shot, it won’t be good for your ribs.”

“I’m not that weak,” Doc moaned grabbing Brock’s hand desperately, “We used to play every time I nearly died…”

They had got up to a lot of stupid things when they were young, the first time Doc had even kissed him they were both high on adrenaline, Brock was covered in the blood of a wanna be villain and Doc was holding his hand over a gunshot wound, barely standing but he still managed to yank Brock to his level for that kiss. 

“I know you aren’t,” Brock grunted back, “You’re a little cockroach, not even an atom bomb can keep you down for long.”

“Such a romantic,” Doc giggled trying and failing to pull himself up to Brock’s level making him roll his eyes laying down next to him. 

“Its my job to keep you alive and you being you doesn’t help things sometimes.”

Doc didn’t say anything for a moment pulling himself closer to Brock and Brock took pity on him and wrapped an arm around him and pulled him closer.

“I just want things to go back the way they were with us, before you left…”

It must have been the alcohol talking because Doc was never this honest about his feelings, usually kept them bottled up till they exploded.

“I know you have never solely been mine and we have always been open to sharing….but it feels like she is stealing you from me. I want to be good enough for you to just want me sometimes…”

Doc was sobbing into his side now and Brock didn’t know what to do or say to make him stop. He just lay there letting him sob, little whispers begging Brock to think he was good enough.

Brock let him cry himself out and pass out next to him before tucking him in and leaving the room.

Doc was the only man he would and could ever love this way, but a part of Brock just never wanted to settle.

He didn’t consider himself gay and maybe he didn’t want the world to see him that way either, he just wanted it to remain something he did behind closed doors when no one was looking.

He growled loudly throwing himself onto his own bed, it said a lot about Doc’s character that he cared more about Brock not loving him then the possibility someone had attempted to murder him tonight.

He did what he always did at times like these, he shoved it all from his head and opened up his computer. He needed to figure out who had tried to murder the idiot man he couldn’t help but love and how it was connected to this Blue Morpho character.

\---

The next morning Brock found himself waiting in the car while Doc had nervously walked into Enzo’s place of business. Brock couldn’t feel too much pity for him being banned from this place again since he did this to himself, but the entire situation wasn’t sitting right with him. Doc, a level ten protagonist now, walks in just at the right time to steal a suit that belongs to a man the guild obviously wanted dead. Wide Whale wouldn’t have tried to kill a Venture this way unless he was positive he was his target. After doing some brief research into this ‘Blue Morpho’ he learned he was a member of the old team venture and more importantly, a close enough associate of Jonas Venture that he was known to supply him tech.

He lit up a cigarette keeping his eye on Doc as he tried to weasel his way out of the consequences he brought on himself but seeing Enzo spit in his face, Brock knew it was gonna be over here soon so he needed to wrap up his conversation with Hunter.

“Rusty Venture has been nearly assassinated since he was five, everyone wants that man dead, you are making mountains out of damn mole hills. This was just coincidental.”

“I don’t think so. A new Blue Morpho rises up killing off Guild top members nearly forty years after the originals death and he tries to frame Jonas Venture’s son for his crime? Tell me that doesn’t sound like something some disgruntled nut job would try to pull off to be poetic or some shit.”

“If I accept the Guild’s invitation you better hope to damn Christ your gut is right or your ass is on the line Sampson!”

“Listen I’m just doing my job and my job is to protect Rusty Venture and his family and if that means helping the Guild catch this guy, fine, whatever.”

Brock hung up on whatever rambling speech Hunter was about to spew to him as he watched Doc slide into the car, slumping dramatically and folding his arms.

“Well there goes five hundred dollars I will never get back,” he grumbled making Brock roll his eyes.

“You get a name for this guy?”

“Client confidentiality agreement,” Rusty grunted out making Brock glare at him seeing his knobby knees hit his dash, “He works with masked weirdos, of course he’s not allowed to just give out their secrets.”

“I have other ways of getting this guy,” Brock promised.

“Well when you catch him make sure to get my money back, his dry cleaning wasn’t cheap you know.”

Brock just chuckled at that, only Doc could come out of a situation where he almost died and be more pissed at the fact he had to pay for dry cleaning that was pocket change to him now.

“Wanna get coffee?”

“For nine dollars a latte, you better be buying,” Rusty answered back with his smuggest grin making Brock roll his eyes.

Even worth millions he was still the cheapest man he knew. He felt Rusty gently touch his thigh and give him a wicked smile and Brock smiled back.

It seemed he was offering to pay for the coffee after all.

**Author's Note:**

> I spent a lot of time on this after seeing this tumblr post: http://deliriumbubbles.tumblr.com/post/177754493154/i-still-have-a-really-hard-time-believing-that, then this happened. I don't know.


End file.
